By Bob Webb

Creating Opportunity Beyond Our Wildest Dream Leadership and Workplace Innovators Motivation Charts

Written and Published by Captain Bob Webb 220 Ibis Lane Goose Creek, SC 29445 (843) 764-3280 www.motivation-tools.com Copyrighted 2005, 2011 by Robert L. Webb May 2011 edition Table of Contents Introduction .. 2 Chart Elements . 4 Learning Opportunity versus Learning Personality 8 How Universal Intelligence Creates Opportunity Beyond Our Wildest Dreams .... 11 Leadership and Workplace Innovators ... 15 Motivation Charts 18 How I Made My Dreams Come True ... 25 Notes on Self-education .. 27

Introduction
Understanding the ability to turn information into knowledge is extremely complex. The charts that follow may help you understand why some people comprehend information easy while others find it almost impossible. With a visual picture it becomes clear the connection between learning environments and natural talent. Discovering our natural talent is essential to selecting a professional skill we can succeed at. Employers are looking for employees whose natural talent is in harmony with the assigned tasks. These charts can help students and employers understand the link between natural talents and needed skills. Learning Personality Every individual not only has a social personality that is different from everyone else, each of us has a learning personality that is different from everyone else. Our learning personality is the combination of natural talent, personal interest, current opportunity, social environment, character, motivation, and how the brain processes information. People, whose learning personality is in harmony with their social environment, are considered highly intelligent. People, whose learning personality is out of harmony with their social environment, are considered to have low intelligence. Everyone wants to be considered intelligent and will seek social environments that will give them that feeling. This is why some strive to be a CEO while others accept a self-destructive (criminal) lifestyle. Information Sources Universal intelligence is the source of all creative thinking, which offers answers to a persistent desire. Universal intelligence can be compared to the internet that sends out information to desktop computers as requested. A desktop cannot hold the volume of information that is available on the internet; it does not need to, because its not possible for a single user to use it. Super achievers have learned how to acquire information from various sources. They have a love-to-learn that motivates them to seek change. For others, their source of information is limited to what is already discovered and recorded. They reject change and accept the way things are, they no longer have a desire to learn. Using the Chart The formal education is designed by intellectuals for intellectuals. This chart is designed to help non-intellectuals people who are in conflict with the formal education system. In addition, it will help employers select efficient employees, especially blue-collar skills. The chart compares academic and mechanical learning personalities, because they are opposite. As a rule, people who have strong natural talent in one are weak in another. The artistic personality in this article represents other talents. Very often artistic talented people have limited ability in academic and mechanical skills, so they would have the same academic education problems that mechanical talented people have.

How Information is Turned Into Knowledge

Chart Elements
The Brain The top part of the chart represents the brain and how it processes information with natural skills. It recognizes that every individual has talents that work at different efficiencies. Highly efficient people have education and employment opportunities that are in harmony with their natural talent. They may have found the combination by accident or by design. People cannot rely on accidents to find what works for them; they need opportunity to discover their natural talent. The Processing Bin The processing bin controls the level of emotions, ambitions, influence, interest, and motivation. If these attributes are positive, they can compensate for lack of opportunity and abilities. A goal that motivates, can overcome all barriers. With persistence, all natural talents will grow and become more efficient. A wishful or disliked goal will not overcome anything. Without positive attitudes in the processing bin, current natural talent and ambition could fade away. Buying a lottery ticket is a symbol of wishful dreams. There is no way to learn how to buy a winning ticket.
Piping diagram shows information flowing into the brain. The color bar length represents strength of natural talent.

Society gives the impression that all learning takes place in formal education environments. Learning is a lifetime process that is controlled by the processing bin.

Universal intelligence feeds the processing bin with positive or negative information. It re-enforces what we believe or want to believe, right or wrong. When we persistently seek to fulfill our dreams, universal intelligence will lead us to opportunity. The Collection Bin We are constantly exposed to information through lectures, observations, and experiences. What is received is processed and sent to the brain. Motivated people are in the habit of searching for information that is in harmony with their natural talent, which is their primary interest. Many people do not know what their natural talent is or they are under the impression they have none. When they apply for a job, they say they can do anything, whatever that means.

The color triangle length represents volume of selected knowledge being offered.

Social Influences Self-fulfilling Prophecy Labels by educators, friends and family influence behavior, positive and negative. The typical classroom is a competitive environment where there are achievers and failures. Self-fulfilling prophecy propels the achievers upward and the failures downward. People reinforce labels placed on them; fulfill what is expected of them. Interest and Motivation We all want to learn more about topics that are of interest to us. In the classroom, topics may or may not be of interest to the students. Some people can comprehend dull information; others can only comprehend topics of interest.

In the classroom a student is labeled as having low reading and comprehension skills, because his abilities are measured on topics that have little or no interest to him. At home, he is writing computer games, a skill that requires a great deal of reading and comprehension. In addition, he is using creative and visionary skills. If reading skills were measured on computer programming, (personal interest) he would have a very high rating. If formal education was customized to the students interest, then, many students would be reclassified as having high intelligence. Level of interest equals level of comprehension. Sources of Knowledge Opportunity to acquire knowledge comes from many sources. When we discover the source that works best for us, we can acquire skills beyond our wildest dreams. Experiential learning is based on the laws of nature. Nature is a teacher, it has laws that must be obeyed, it will not tolerate cheating or shortcuts. It teaches self-discipline, the efficiency of honesty, respect for others, including the forces of nature. Experiential learning is mans natural learning environment that challenges our limits while producing a feeling of achievement. The sea is an excellent example where the forces of nature must be respected in order to succeed. If they are not, the person or ship goes to the bottom. For example, a ship must be designed right, built right, and skillfully handled if it is to sail from point A to B. Quality planning makes the voyage a pleasure, poor planning or shortcuts will risk the success of the voyage.

A piping diagram shows how information flows from the source to the collection box.

Experiential learning is based on discovery and experience. This inspires students to learn more about the world they live in. These students advance at a very rapid pace, because discovery is a highly motivating force. Experiential learning does not label students gifted or learning disability. 5

At the website, experiential learning is called Project Based Education. The theme is on learning how-to-learn versus how-to-be-taught, developing a love-to-learn that last a lifetime. For super achievers, education starts when they leave the formal education system. The typical classroom is a highly competitive environment Classrooms have achievers and failures. (Winners and losers) Student results are compared with all students in the class and school. Intelligence is measured by the ability to put clear thoughts on paper. It is designed for the academic learning personality. Other types of intelligence have low priority. Some students are competitive and accept the challenge; others will not try to compete. If a mechanical learning personality cannot meet academic standards, they are considered to have a learning disability. A counselor may conclude a student has strong mechanical skills, but will not offer compatible learning opportunity. In all competitive activities there are winners and losers. The classroom is no different. Some education programs are designed to be non competitive. Team learning The military's traditional training was in teams, before 1980. The group works as a team and they depend on team knowledge to get the job done. It accommodates different learning personalities and different speeds of comprehension. Group intelligence increases as the team shares knowledge. Team learning is associated with the sharing of knowledge through bragging, conflicts and socializing. Teams create a desire-to-learn that contributes to the success of team goals. Peer influence is a powerful motivator. Self-education Through the power of self-education you can be anything you want to be or do anything you want to do. A self-education skill does not require money, fixed time, or fixed life style. Options are extremely flexible. Rewards are unlimited. This is based on having a goal that motivates and a love-to-learn. This is how you control your destiny. Self-education is taking on self-motivated projects, learning how to finish them without outside pressure. This is the tool of visionaries and creative thinkers, whose success is based on a love-to-learn. Social skills and job skills These are the instructions to the brain for processing information. Some are imbedded at birth, others are acquired as we age and some are revised through social influence and selffulfilling insight. This leads us to be at the right place at the right time with the right tools and not knowing this is happening until it happens. This may seem unprofessional, but if everyone had all the facts for success, there would be no failures. People, who make more right decisions than wrong are the winners.

Perspective insight skills This is the connection strength to universal intelligence. Super achievers have a strong connection, because they have a motivating purpose in life. They are searching for ways to achieve their goal or mission and universal intelligence is helping them. Most people accept the way things are, therefore, their connection is weak. All of us, on occasions, have gut feelings, right or wrong about something. This is universal intelligence at work. Universal intelligence When we set a goal, universal intelligence goes to work, but it only works as hard as our desire to achieve it. Persistence research, trying and failing, strengthens its effectiveness. If we do not have a clearly defined goal that motivates us, universal intelligence is of little help. It does not react to wishful thinking or buying a lottery ticket. Many people do not believe there is such a thing, but my experiences with accidental opportunity, based on motivating goals and high-risk adventures has demonstrated this power. It has led me, if not forced me, to make quality decisions that otherwise would have been a disaster or opportunity never offered. All information starts with universal intelligence, is discovered by visionaries, creative thinkers and passed on to society as recorded information.

Learning Opportunity versus Learning Personality

The charts below compare learning opportunity with natural talent. Each represents a learning personality. This will help you understand why some people excel in the formal education system while others are in conflict. The formal education system is academic based, designed for the academic learning personality. The gray triangle represents academic learning opportunity. The gray bar represents natural talent. This ability is measured and compared to every other student in the class and school. Other skills are offered and considered optional. Because learning opportunity and natural talent are in harmony, this student is labeled most likely to succeed.

This chart represents the mechanical learning personality, attending an academic based education system. There are very few classes available that would challenge the strong mechanical talent, as represented by the green bar. Because of low academic ability, they are not allowed to take mechanical courses, topics they could excel at. This student will be labeled a failure and self-fulfilling prophecy will prove everyone right.

This is a blue-collar social environment where mechanical learning opportunity is offered to the mechanical learning personality. If the above student were in this learning environment, they would discover the natural talent and excel beyond their wildest dreams. At one time non academic trade schools were very popular. Because they did not offer academic subjects and measure results by them, the federal government would not give them financial support. They had to shut down. 8

This academic learning personality is in a mechanical learning environment. They quickly realize this is not for them and leave. There are plenty of learning opportunities that are in harmony with their ability. Some academic learning personalities acquire a blue-collar trade. As a rule, they do not advance. Then there are those that advance because of their excellent report writing abilities.

This mechanical learning personality is out of the education system, having never discovered their true capabilities. The education system labeled them a failure and they believed it. There is a shortage of skilled craftsmen in our society and there are people on the street that can fill this need. The education system did not give them opportunity, because they did not meet academic standards. Many blue-collar skills do not need a high level of academic ability.

Once a professional skill is mastered and basic needs are met, many people no longer have a desire to learn. Their potential dies and they become depend on the status quo. With todays fast changing technology, this is a disaster. Then there are people whose desire-tolearn is turned off before developing a professional skill. Very often, this is the result of self-fulfilling prophecy developed with labels in the classroom.

A love to learn is the result of learning how to learn, knowing how to educate themselves versus how to be taught. Over time, weak natural talents become strong and the strong become even stronger. Just because a person had problems learning math and English as a teenager does not mean they will have the same problems in their thirties. With exercise, our learning capacity increases.

In blue-collar industries, employers have trouble finding employees with the skills they need. The problem starts with student selection in trade schools and technical colleges. Applicants are given academic test and the results must meet these standards before they are admitted. As a result, accepted students have strong academic skills and mild mechanical skills. The skills employers are looking for never get into the system.

The Need for Change

A hundred years ago, at the dawn of the industrial revolution, public education adapted the production-line mentality to the education system. Everyone is expected to achieve a benchmark level of academic skills by a selected age. If they adapt, they are labeled gifted, if they dont, they are labeled as having learning disability. Every individual is different, it is impossible to make everyone conform to production-line standards. Today, 30% to 50% of our teenagers drop out of high school. Its not that then cant learn or dont want to, they are rejecting outdated education methods. Our education system needs to adapt to the 21st century. When motivated, people will learn and excel. Our young people are being academically stuffed while being motivationally starved. The learning disability label is a cover-up boredom is the problem. 10

How Universal Intelligence Creates Opportunity Beyond Our Wildest Dreams

In my teen years I read Tom Sawyer on the Mississippi River by Mark Twain. This inspired my desire to travel down the Amazon River that would be similar to his time period. Kon Tikis raft voyage across the Pacific Ocean inspired my interest to duplicate how the Polynesians populated the Pacific Ocean islands from Hawaii to New Zealand 1,000 years ago. In 1960 at the age of 25 I was living in Oklahoma City where my lifestyle was controlled by credit cards. I was in debt over my head and living from payday to payday. I was never on a sailboat and my dreams of jungle and sea adventures were dead. I decided I need to take control of my lifestyle and made drastic changes. During the next five years I paid off my debts, help crew a 36 sailboat from Hawaii to Los Angles, became employed with the Panama Canal Company in Panama as a machinist, traveled down the Amazon River on a raft, and ended up on a beach in Tahiti with two 40 dugout canoes. My objective was to build a double hull boat like the Polynesians and sail it to Hawaii. I had to give up on the voyage at this time, but I was living the lifestyle of my dreams. I was in control. My book, The Liki Tiki Story has details. Starting with no money and no experience I was at the right place and right time seemly hundreds of times. At the time I considered these contacts to be by chance. Looking back I realized there was a systematic pattern taking place that allowed me to acquire needed skills and resources to move the dream forward. Chance or luck does not produce results like this. There was another force at work supporting my dream, universal intelligence. It was working in the background setting up timing and opportunity, it became my decision to act. Decisions based on feeling that this is the right thing to do without having all the facts or knowing the outcome. We connect to universal intelligence when searching for answers not found in recorded knowledge. It is similar to searching the internet. Theres tons of information, good and bad, right and wrong, which leaves it up to us to make a decision. Universal intelligence is no different, except the display. The internet is displayed on a screen, universal intelligence is displayed in our thought process. The thought process stimulates our comfort zone to take action or ignore it. It becomes active through the development of personal dreams, goals, and the search for creativity. People who have no goals, who have accepted the status quo, have limited connections to universal intelligence. Universal intelligence compared to the internet. There is an unlimited supply of knowledge that we can tap into, but the receiver must determine if discovered information is useful or not. It does not know good information from bad, or right from wrong. Skills and experience of receiver determine that. It will offer suggestions where facts are mission. It will make contacts. Skills and experience will determine their value. It will learn what you are trying to do and refine results to fit your needs. We are awed by super achievers and wonder how they achieved that against all odds. The following examples have two elements in common; they had a mission statement/goal, written 11

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or understood, that united their decisions. In some cases the mission statement was one word SURVIVAL. They were guided by universal intelligence, knowingly or unknowingly. They made the right decision, because they felt it was the right thing to do.

Over 200 years ago the crew of the HMS Bounty munity and took control of the ship. They set adrift, in an open boat, Captain William Bligh and his supporters. Without charts or navigation interments, they sailed the boat 3,600 miles to the Dutch colony, Timor, near Java. Survival was the goal that united the crew. In 1914, 27 men joined Ernest Shackleton on an Antarctica expedition. The failed mission was transformed into the greatest survival drama in the age of Polar exploration when their ship was crushed in an ice flow. Shackletons 800 mile voyage in a life boat and mountain climbing challenge brought help to rescue his men after two years in the Antarctica. Survival was the goal that united the crew. 1,000 years ago Polynesians populate the Pacific Ocean islands from Hawaii to New Zealand without charts or navigation interments. Their chants and dances tell how the gods guided them across the vast Pacific Ocean in their dugout canoes. Belief in God united the crew. Today, FaceBook and Google Inc., along with many others, changed social relations and how we process information. Leaderships vision united the workforce. The workforce, being united with a clear mission statement, were able to develop unique ideas that change the way we communicate.

People who fulfill their dreams, knowingly or unknowingly, advance using their comfort zone. Where there is a lack of knowledge and the need to know, we base final decisions on intuitive forces. This is how we achieve any goal in life, whether it is sailing across oceans, building a business, or survival. Comfort zone navigation is how the Polynesians populated the Pacific Ocean. This is how Captain Bligh navigated 3,600 miles to the Dutch colony in Timor without charts or navigation tools. This is how my adventure lifestyle became possible. Comfort zone navigation had me at the right place at the right time to embrace opportunity. Universal intelligence communicates with us through our comfort zone. (Gut feelings, intuitive forces) It is based on the laws of nature, the power that designed and created life on earth. It created humans as free thinkers with the ability to create with its help. It helps us in a crisis or guides us to personal achievement. When we understand natures laws and adapt to it we can achieve success. For example; a ships hull is designed to move through the water efficiently by understanding the law of physics. If 13

the laws are ignored and the ship is built as a square box, there will be many problems trying to push it through the water. The same is true for universal intelligence. By understanding its laws we can achieve our goals with fewer problems. The laws: A clearly defined mission statement/goal that motivates. TOP PRIORITY! Visionary skills. Freedom to develop/promote ideas. Discovering what works with trial and error. Failing and bouncing back is the filter that separates casual interest from passionate interest. Self-education skills. Must develop a passion for the mission/goal. It does not support goals based on changing moods or interest. Skills and experience are needed to make quality decisions. It offers choices, not decisions. We being the developer make the decision. When decisions are right the project will develop and grow. When they is wrong it will self-destruct. Universal intelligence services: Will offer ideas good or bad, right or wrong. Will connect you with support. Will have you at the right time and place for possible opportunity. When lacking skills or experience it will connect you to opportunity to acquire needed skills. It will find ways to motivate you to be persistent through good times and bad. Elements that can enhance or be a barrier: Social pressurepositive or negative Competing ideas Risk levelwilling to take risk or not Love, sex Changing environmentsaccept or reject Belief in our abilities and self-filling prophecy To accept the comfort zone concept some theories must be recognized. Universal intelligence is the source for all creative ideas. Man does not produce creativity, he searches for ideas and universal intelligence supplies possibilities. We have the ability to analyze and process ideas with recorded information. It does not help people with no focused goal or personal achievement desires. The question is soon asked, What role does God have in this? The answer is, universal intelligence is one of many elements in the universe that God manages. Worshiping God is a powerful motivating goal and the same rules apply. God helps us by guiding us to a higher quality lifestyle. The song Just a Closer Walk with Thee is a mission statement that is sung many times. It inspires us to apply the teachings of Jesus Christ. Money, power, and influence are not a goals, they are a rewards only for personal achievement. Quality lifestyle is also a reward of personal achievement, it is not a goal by itself.

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Leadership and Workplace Innovators

Today, fast growing organizations are built on leadership innovation, that is, they are not built by product visionaries but by social visionaries those who invent entirely new ways of organizing human effort.

Every successful innovation is the result of a dreamer with a mission. Every new innovation replaces someones previous innovation. A previous innovator may see it as a threat to their idea and work to prevent it. Job insecurity often kills innovation. Who in their right mind is going to innovate themselves out of o job? Experts who are familiar with a subject or problem often raise barriers to innovation. They tend to know all the reasons why something will not work. Their over familiarity and previous successes with a problem can blind them to seeing newer better ways to solve it. When innovators believe in an idea, they will move impossible barriers to see their idea become a reality. Innovators can be impatient, nonconforming, intolerant, obnoxious, and extremely difficult to work with, but they find new ways of doing things.

What is Your Leadership Style? This chart is based on leadership styles that inspire or kill creative thinking and the type of people that it will attract. Creative, innovative people are attracted to the upper levels. They like to brag about their contribution, therefore, leadership knows who is doing what. People at the lower level accept the status quo and are yes-people telling leadership what they want to hear. As a result, leadership does not know what is going on. Leadership style in today's fastest growing organizations are at the upper level such as Google Inc. High Efficiency

Do it. Do it then tell me what you did. Tell me what you are going to do and do it. Tell me what you want to do and wait for a decision. Don't do anything without my approval. Don't do anything until I tell you. Low Efficiency

Control leadership kills creativity, communications, blocking the ability to recognize needs or opportunity. 15

Worker Responsibility Supports Innovated Leadership People, that have a love-to-learn, are attracted to organizations that give them responsibility. All lines to expanding knowledge are connected; the organization is in a continuous learning mode. Change is embraced because it offers opportunity. These organizations are the technology leaders in our society. Google Inc. is an example. They have a leadership style that attracts visionaries and inspires ideas. In the typical workplace, elementary problems are dealt with by the people affected by them, preventing their growth into a time consuming event. Leadership stays focused on current needs, new ideas, and advancing technology. When leadership is based on worker responsibility, employees have opportunity to learn the skills that accumulate wealth. Employees that know how to accumulate wealth use their skills to increase the wealth of their organization. It is an upward spiral for all. This does not happen in a command-and-control environment.

This chart illustrates how knowledge and information flows from all levels of the workforce under visionary leadership. Different opinions causes debate, sometime violent, but this leads to quality decisions. In this environment connections to universal intelligence are stimulated, knowingly or unknowingly. This is how high quality ideas are developed.
The Motivation Tool Chest website has detailed topics on workplace leadership.

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Command-and-control Leadership Supports Status Quo Attitudes With command-and-control employees leave their brain at home and bring their body to work. Employees, who no longer have a desire to learn, control the workplace. All connections to expanding knowledge are broken, they accept the status quo. They cannot adapt to changing technology, because it is a threat to their insecurity. The only connection to expanding knowledge is in the classroom. Command-and-control leadership produces a high level of exploding problems that no one was authorized or willing to deal with while at the elementary level. The front-line, people who are first aware of potential problems, are not allowed to take action. Management is pre occupied with high priority events, usually a once minor problem that has exploded into a major event. Leaders are recognized for managing major problems, not minor ones. Leaders that spend time on elementary problems get low efficiency ratings.

This chart illustrates how potential ideas and knowledge are cutoff from leadership. Many leaders want control over efficiency. Keeping innovators and visionaries out of the organization and turning off learning opportunity helps maintain this control. With challenge to leadership policies gone, they complain about the inept attitude of the workforce. Dictatorship has always been inefficient. 17

Note: It does not matter if you accept or reject the universal intelligence theory. The following motivation charts are based on the concept and will achieve results when applied.

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Teaching to standardize test does not inspire anyone to be an achiever. They may get As in the classroom, but they will have limited ambition in the real world. 21

The chart on the left illustrates teenagers in todays education system. The system is based on academics. Any teen that does not adapt to the system gets a negative labeled. His interest or natural talent are not considered. Because he does not meet academic standards he will not be allowed opportunity that is in harmony with his natural talent, neither will he get any help in finding out what it is. Rebellion sets in and he becomes a burden on society. Educators come from the academic world and have limited interest in students that are not like them.

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Todays students are academically stuffed while been motivationally starved. 23

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How I Made My Dreams Come True

by Captain Bob Webb Public schools are supposed to remove barriers so people can succeed. For some, the system does remove barriers and provide a solid base for achievement. For others, the system replaces one set of barriers with another. For example, creativity is killed by pressuring students to accept the status quo, by establishing a fear to be different and a fear of failure. Independent thinking is replaced by dependency. In some cases, pressure to excel in academics kills the love to learn a skill needed for success in the real world. People, who have a vision that motivates, will maintain a love to learn and overcome all barriers. My Story My story begins in Summit, NJ, at the age of sixteen, where I am sitting in a classroom starring out the window. Out of the first window I could see myself exploring the jungles of South America searching for gold, I could see myself drifting down the Amazon River on a raft, I could see monkeys swinging through the trees, I could see myself as Tarzan swinging on a vine. Through the next window, I could see the bow of my sailboat plowing through the towering waves, heading toward the South Pacific. I could see myself on a white sand beach chasing girls. Then BANG! The teacher's yardstick hitting my desk brought me back Bob Webb preparing for to the real world where subjects did not relate to my interest and dreamers are related to dummies. In a loud voice the teacher said, "You a dive at the Panama Canal are a failure! If you don't pay attention you will continue to be a failure!" When the bell rang, instead of going to the next class I walked out of school never to return. I was tired of being called a failure. Right or wrong, I took charge of my future. When I left school, I carried the single most important element for success... A DREAM. During the next twenty years, every one of my teenage dreams came true. You may be asking, "How does one make their dreams come true?" There are three elements:

First - We must have a dream that motivates us. No one has ever achieved anything without a dream attached to a burning desire. Second - We must learn how-to-learn. In school, we learn how to memorize or be taught. Learning how to learn frees our dependency on others for knowledge. Third - We must learn from failure and learn how to bounce back from failure. No one ever succeed without failure. In the classroom, failure is a no-no.

In my early teens, I read the book Kon-Tiki. This is a story about six Norwegians sailing a raft across the Pacific Ocean. Their adventure inspired my dream of duplicating their raft 25

voyage. As a teenager with normal parents, a dream like this was considered ridiculous. Not only did friends and family not support my dream, they told me to get serious. But the Kon-Tiki dream turned me on. I wanted to know more about the ocean world and how it could be challenged. I went to the public library looking for more books and found plenty. During the next few years, I joined the seas scouts, read boating magazines, studied nautical books, and went to boat shows. To help understand seamanship techniques, I made model charts, buoys, and boats. With models, comprehension was easy. Unknowingly, I was learning the art of learning how-to-learn self-education a technique that would follow me the rest of my life, a technique that would bring me success and make my wildest dreams come true. At the age of nineteen, during the Korean War, I was in the Marine Corps and in Japan. On my first day of duty an officer told me, "You are a machinist and will be in charge of the machine shop." As he gave me the shop keys, he pointed to a trailer. In the Marine Corps, everything is on wheels. When I opened the doors I had my first look ever at a machine shop. In the shop was one short instruction manual titled "How to Run a Lathe." When a job came in, I followed the manual's instructions. I was surprised at my ability to complete assigned tasks. The Marine Corps experience launched my machinist career. It also made me realize that learning how-to-learn is a powerful tool. For example, every manmade object around us is the result of someone's dream and failures. Consider the light bulb. Thomas Edison believed something could burn white-hot and not burn up. A wild unrealistic dream? Everyone knows everything burns up in a short time. A thousand failures later, Thomas Edison burned a steel wire white hot that never burned up. Continuous white heat creates light. Opportunity is attracted to people with a dream. They are the first to be hired, first to be offered opportunity, and first to be promoted. Bigger the dream the faster doors open. People without a dream are last to be hired, last to be promoted and first to be laid-off in a force reduction. For non-dreamers, doors remain closed. WHY? People with a dream act differently than non-dreamers. Dreamers develop an attitude that radiates energy; they have a sense of purpose and meaning to their lives. Radiant energy is an attitude that bosses like and to which they offer opportunity. This is how the impossible becomes possible. When I was discharged from the Marine Corps, I decided people were right, my wild teenage dream was ridicules. Real people do not drift across oceans on rafts. I am now an adult, I should think and act like one. The raft dream was dead. For the next five years my life went nowhere, my ambition, hope, dreams were gone. Something else was also gone opportunity that came fast during my earlier years also dried up. One day I dusted off the Kon-Tiki book. My dream jumped off the pages and came to life. I said to myself, "I must find a way!" Two years later, I was in Hawaii and learned how the Polynesian people populated the Pacific Islands in dugout canoes 1,000 years ago. My dream was changed from a raft to a dugout canoe. At this time, opportunity came back and fast. I helped crew a 36-foot sailboat from Hawaii to California. This provided my ocean sailing experience. Next, I was hired by the Panama Canal Company, Panama. Soon, my supervisor asked me to attend hard-hat diver school at company expense. With this skill, money was no longer a problem. 26

A short time later, I was living on a beach in Tahiti building a 40-foot Polynesian double-hull boat named Liki Tiki. The hulls were built by Choco Indians in the Darien Providence of Panama and shipped to Tahiti. I built the boat according to popular theory and information supplied by the Bishop Museum in Honolulu. Three days at sea convinced me the double-hull theory was wrong. The two hulls worked against each other and would soon breakup. Back in Panama, I took the problem to the Indians in the Darien Jungle. They said, "Outriggers is what works." I then succeed in sailing a 36-foot dugout canoe with outriggers, named Liki Tiki Too, from Panama, 5,000 miles, to Hawaii. Opportunity never stopped. For the Navy Undersea Center Hawaii I help develop a two-man Plexiglas submarine. Moving back to the Panama Canal Zone, I learned five computer languages and became supervisor of the computer department, I became Captain of the Canal Zone's training schooner Chief Aptakisic on which we took a group of teenagers to New York. My wife and I spent five years sailing the South Pacific Ocean in our own 50-foot sail boat, Hunky-Dory, which I designed and self-built. Opportunity came my way because I could educate myself, was motivated and did not let a wild teenage dream die.
Bob was captain of Canal Zone training schooner Chief Aptakisic.

Liki Tiki in Tahiti

Notes on Self-education
Some History Man has always been able to educate himself without instructors. In third world countries, there are limited education opportunities self-education is the only way to acquire skills. Up until about 1960, a job applicant with self-education skills was desirable. Chuck Yeager was the first man to fly faster than sound, yet his formal education was limited to high school. His skills helped us learn how to put man in space. When the first astronauts were chosen, Chuck Yeager, the man who showed us how, was disqualified because he did not have a college education. From this time on, self-educated people were not recognized on employment application forms. In the last 40 years, self-education has gone underground. It is still active, but is not recognized by society. The Panama Canal The Panama Canal Commission has always adapted advancing technology as soon as it was available. This may be tradition from the construction days. Because of the demand for skilled employees in advancing technology and lack of formal training opportunity, the Commission 27

has to rely on the self-educated. This was especially true during the construction days when most of the workers came from Jamaica with almost no formal education. Mr. John F. Stevens, the chief engineer, did not have a grade school education. He understood self-education concepts and implemented a leadership style that took full advantage of man's ability to educate himself. There is a saying: "If employers treat their employees like engineers, they will think and act like engineers. If they treat them like helpers, they will think and act as helpers." The Panama Canal Commission treats blue-collar craftsmen like engineers. As a result, they make decisions equal to that of college-educated engineers in the United States. In most parts of the US, blue-collar craftsmen are treated as helpers. My experience In 1980, the Panama Canal Commission installed timesharing computers in all offices. (Timesharing was a typewriter controlled by a computer at a central location. There was no monitor, input and output was typed on rolled paper.) I was working as a machinist when assigned to the office to operate the computer. My only experience was reading about them. My assignment was to write programs that would be useful in the office. There was no instructor available; the only source of help was a small manual that came with the computer. There was no software, so the first assignment was to learn BASIC computer language, then design programs that would be useful in the office. A year later, IBM-PCs were installed. The same policy, no outside help and write your own software. It really wasn't policy, there was no one available to help and there was no useful software on the market that met our needs. I retired 8 years later as supervisor of the computer department. I had a similar experience in 1954 when I was 19 years old, in the Marine Corps, during the Korean War. I was sent to Japan. First day off the troop ship, an officer told me, "you are a machinist. You are also in charge of the machine shop." Using a small manual, I taught myself to be a machinist, which became my primary occupation. During extended combat, there is no time for years of training. Teenagers are able to learn skills in weeks, if not days, when under combat pressure. They are learning with hands-on in real word environments. It takes years to learn the same skills in classrooms. My ability to educate myself is the secret that open the doors of opportunity. Number of years in the classroom may determine the ease of getting a job, but self-education skill determines the ability to advance.

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More Information

The below links are live. I included the address should the live link be striped. The Motivation Tool Chest website has extensive articles on the topic used in this document. Project Based Education motivation-tools.com/youth/ Learning Personality motivation-tools.com/youth/learning_personality.htm Comfort Zone Navigation motivation-tools.com/liki_tiki/navigation.htm Workplace Education motivation-tools.com/workplace/2workplace_education.htm Setting Goals motivation-tools.com/elements/setting_goals.htm The Liki Tiki Storymotivation-tools.com/downloads.htm Visions and Lifestylesmotivation-tools.com/elements/life_styles.htm

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